Outage at LAX delays 49 flights

A construction accident blacked out lighting on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport for several hours, briefly delaying flights around the country, authorities said.

Forty-nine flights to Los Angeles were delayed an average of 56 minutes Tuesday to prevent the airport from having a logjam, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.
After the lights were restored “there were residual delays” of another hour or two until flights got back on schedule, Gregor said Wednesday.

Crews working on a runway on the airport’s south side sliced through a power cable shortly before 3:30 p.m. That shut down the guide lights on another of the airport’s three operational runways.

The shutdown reduced the number of aircraft that could land from 72 to 36 per hour, Gregor said.